Everlong Revised
by Taylor-V
Summary: Rewritten. When Kirk and Spock escape from a Tarkan research vessel they've been held captive in, they take half-Mari Dorthea DeVult along, accidentally leaving her sister Eliza behind. With the girl's fate on his conscience, Kirk is... ctd. inside...
1. Chapter 1

**Everlong**  
**by Taylor-V**  
**Chapter 1**  
**Summary: **_Rewritten. When Kirk and Spock escape from a Tarkan research vessel they've been held captive in, they take half-Mari Dorthea DeVult along, accidentally leaving her sister Eliza behind. With the girl's fate on his conscience, Kirk is compelled to assist Dorthea in the rescue of Eliza, but finds the eldest's concentration waning as her obsession with Spock's mind strengthens._  
**Disclaimer: **Don't own? Okay.

* * *

Pain radiated like venom through the joint where Kirk's arm connected to his shoulder, growing white hot as his eyes peeled open. He groaned dully, lifting his hand in the almost total darkness to feel for the wound. Sticky wetness coated his fingers when he gingerly prodded a large gash of some sort in his ball-socket joint. If only he could see, he might be able to stop the bleeding, create a makeshift tourniquet or something. But the black surrounding him would have been absolute, if not for a yellow light flickering weakly under the crack of the door locking him in this unfamiliar room.

"Sp… Spock. You there?"

Gently feeling around for his Commander, Kirk climbed slowly to his knees, careful not to put any weight on his aching arm. His head throbbed angrily and he dug his tongue into his cheek to keep from emitting any moan of any sort. "Come on, Spock. Where are you…."

He stumbled in near-blindness, good hand held out in front of him while he learned the plan of the room he was currently held in, feeling along the walls and storing away each nook and cranny for later use. In his exploration, his knee bumped into something solid, but soft. The muscular thigh of a familiar Vulcan. Heart leaping in ecstasy, Kirk traced the contours of Spock's face and chest, ascertaining that it was indeed him lying unconscious and cold on the ground, before checking for a pulse and breathing. Though both were considerably labored, and Kirk could smell the copper of the Vulcan's blood on his hands, he was alive. For the time being.

He searched both their persons, hoping, but doubtful, that he would find their weapons or anything else that would give off enough light to assess the damage done. Nothing.

Vertigo was creeping in on him at the loss of blood seeping from the injury in his shoulder, but Kirk struggled determinedly to stay awake. Tearing a strip of cloth from his shirt with his teeth, he resigned himself to bumbling about fixing the best tourniquet he could just before the wound, and then set about dressing Spock's.

From what he could tell, there was a deep slash in his Commander's left cheek, trailing from his chin up behind his ear, which was thankfully still intact. On his chest, several shallow cuts, and a swollen mass above his right temple. Even in sleep, he winced as Kirk's fingers prodded lightly at his ribs, suggesting bruising, if not fractures. Removing the entire shirt from his back, he began tearing it into strips and did what he could with what he had. Soon, most of the fabric had been wound around Spock's torso, and he'd managed to secure a scrap of fabric onto the wound on his jaw with the gauze that had previously been wrapped around Kirk's own sprained wrist, fortunately of his injured arm. During the process Spock had begun to squirm uncomfortably, though still under, despite Kirk's soothing words and assurances.

"Captain?"

The word came out somewhat garbled, and concussion was added to Kirk's worries.

"It's me, Spock. Try to rest. You're beat up pretty badly. I tried to fix you up the best I could, but…." He trailed off, knowing that Spock would understand.

He sat up, despite Kirk's and his body's protests, and attempted to penetrate the darkness surrounding them with his eyes.

"Where are we?"

"I don't know, obviously—you should really lie back down. Right now, it doesn't seem like we're in any immediate danger. No one's been here since I woke up." He tried to push his First Officer back down, but the man easily resisted all attempts.

"And yourself?" Spock inquired, ignoring him. "Are you unharmed?"

"I think I got shot in my shoulder, but I've got it taken care of."

"Have you made any attempts to contact Starfleet or the _Enterprise_?"

"They took all our gear."

"What took place in the events after I fell unconscious?"

"Is this how Vulcans deal with injury?" Kirk grumbled.

Even in the black, he could feel Spock's emotionless gaze on him.

"This is how Vulcans deal with hostage situations, Captain. You should be giving as much thought as possible to escaping as well—"

"Like I haven't already been doing that," he snapped. "But we're stuck in a square cell made of some kind of rock, as far as I can tell, with about a hundred square feet, no phasers, no communicators, no tricorders, and no way in hell to see farther than a millimeter in front of our faces. There isn't much to go off of. Now lie down and shut up so you can heal and I can get rid of this headache."

After a moment of silence in which Kirk massaged his temples with his good hand, he felt Spock's body straighten onto the floor next to him and sighed in relief.

"Captain?"

"What?" he growled irately, feeling the ache flare.

"Thank you. For your ministrations."

Shock rippled through Kirk for the merest of seconds before he relaxed and allowed himself to lean his bare back against the cold, craggy rock wall with a small smile. "You're welcome, Mr. Spock." He settled into the most comfortable spot he could find at Spock's side and listened intently to the slowing of the other man's breathing as he fell back into a deep sleep, until Kirk too drifted into unconsciousness.

What felt like seconds later, a piercing bright light and rough voices jerked him into groggy awareness. Kirk attempted to lift himself to his feet, but felt the dead weight of his arm and thick head holding him down like two gigantic dumbbells.

"Son of a… what the hell's going on?" he mumbled thickly, squinting blindly up at the source of the white light emanating from about ten feet in front of him. "Spock?"

"I am here, Captain," came the cool voice at his side, softened into a whisper.

He suddenly became aware that the thing holding him down was not his arm and head, though they certainly felt heavy enough, but Spock's viselike grip on his wrist.

"What's going on?"

In the light, now dimmed as it turned away from the cracks in the door, he could see enough of Spock's face to make out the wheels whirring behind the Commander's dark eyes.

"It seems there has been a disturbance," he responded starkly, gaze still locked avidly on the door as the voices behind it grew in volume. "Intruders, from what I can understand of their language."

"Who are they?"

"I cannot say. From what information I have gathered, they have many enemies—"

"No, our abductors," Kirk corrected, his body and mind rapidly becoming alert.

Spock's attention flickered to him for only a moment, and Kirk thought he saw a strange emotion buried in their depths. "Tarkan scientists. Upon our arrival at the Beta-Delta Quadrant border, they attacked the _Enterprise_ with the seeming intent of capturing me. Reasoning is unknown. I was stunned into unconsciousness. You attempted to retaliate and rescue me, but were also stunned and taken hostage. I have no information on the _Enterprise _or its whereabouts at this time."

"That's what I get for trying to be the hero," Kirk responded after a minute.

Spock lifted his eyebrow.

"How did you find all this out?"

"A guard supplied food while you were sleeping and I melded with him."

Glancing in the corner, Kirk spotted an untouched packet of dried something-or-other. "How long was I out?"

"Approximately nine hours, twenty-six minutes, and thirty-eight seconds," he reeled off.

A tremor shook the room, knocking Kirk to the side and onto his wounded shoulder. Shocks of pain jolted sharply down to his extremities and he withheld a yelp, replacing it with shallow gasps of air that made his head spin. "Ah… son of a…." He growled breathlessly.

"Are you able to move, Captain?" Spock righted the man with gentleness completely unexpected from him.

"Yeah, just give me a quick second."

"We may not have a second."

They stared momentarily at the shadows crossing in front of the door, the shouting outside deafening now, before launching into action. Spock jumped to his feet, kneeling to assist his Captain up as Kirk tightened the tourniquet around his shoulder.

"Are you good, Spock? You're worse off than I am."

"My body is capable of enduring much worse than this and functioning adequately," he replied definitely. "My only concern now is for your safety."

Their eyes met briefly, and Kirk allowed Spock his worry. After all, his head was still whirling nauseatingly. Draping his arm around Spock's shoulder, Kirk let his weight rest on the man's back and found himself lifted as easily as a bag of feathers.

"When the door opens, we will 'make a break for it', as you would say," Spock instructed. "If it is necessary, I will remain behind in order for you to escape safely—"

"No, Spock—"

"—and will fight the others off. Your mission now is to reach the cargo bay. The _Enterprise_ will be searching for our frequencies, and cargo is most likely to be unprotected."

"Spock, I'm not leaving this ship without my Commanding officer," Kirk stated firmly.

"My position is expendable," Spock countered. "Much more so than yours. If I cannot continue, you must."

This time, Kirk held his gaze. "You're coming with. And that's an order, Officer."

A slam shook the walls, and Spock nodded in acquiescence. They stared intently at the door, waiting for the moment that they could slip away. It felt like hours passed.

Suddenly, finally, the thick block of stone slammed open, blinding Kirk for the millionth time, but having no effect whatsoever on Spock as he plowed through the figure in the doorway, hauling Kirk nearly on his back as he did. They burst into a maze of grey halls, a white alert light flashing brightly from bulbs spaced at short intervals along the walls. Utter chaos surrounded them, the multicolored beams of phasers whizzing past their heads as they stumbled around lifeless bodies of Tarkans and other prisoners strewn along the floor.

Spock leapt over them with ease, completely disregarding his injuries, and swung Kirk onto his back like a child to increase their pace.

"Put me down, Spock," Kirk ordered over the din, though his own heart was thrumming unevenly and his lungs clenched tightly. "I can run."

"Our chances of survival are decreased forty-point-eight-nine-two percent if I am to allow you to carry yourself," Spock shouted back.

Unable to argue with that logic, Kirk tightened his good arm around Spock's neck and tried to make himself as light as possible.

Spock sped them through multiple hallways, each growing emptier and quieter the farther they got from what seemed to be the center of the commotion. He didn't falter once, only moved faster and with more determination.

"Where are we?" Kirk asked breathlessly, after at least fifteen minutes of traveling.

"The secondary hull. The cargo hold is near, Captain."

"What else?" Kirk had only glanced at their surroundings, and he wanted to be sure that no sneak attacks were possible.

"Shuttlebay."

Before he could even open his mouth, however, Spock cut in.

"I have already considered the possibility that there will be guards waiting to ambush escapees," he remarked, taking a right and firing off a phaser he'd removed from one of the fallen Tarkans' body earlier on at an oncoming guard. It hit him square in the chest and the giant body toppled over instantly, clearing the way once more.

"Nice aim."

"Thank you, Captain."

Kirk sighed minutely. "We're in a life-or-death situation here, Spock," he reprimanded. "I think you can call me Jim right now, if never again."

"That would be inappropriate, Captain."

Rolling his eyes, Kirk gave up on the subject and let Spock run in silence.

They descended a flight of stairs and suddenly found themselves surrounded by a large, packed cargo hold that, though perfect for hiding in case of attack, would impede their progress exponentially. Spock held the phaser at the ready, while still keeping Kirk steady on his back. They quickly scanned the cathedral-sized area.

"Look." Kirk pointed over his companion's shoulder, toward the center of the room where a large computer was flashing the word 'WARNING' in bright blue. "Can you contact the _Enterprise_ from that?"

"If I am able to bypass the security system, reaching the _Enterprise_ should be simple."

"Put me down. I'll cover you."

Spock surveyed him with intense scrutiny. "Captain, are you sure you are well enough?"

Kirk scowled. "I can handle it." He drew the phaser from his belt and set it to stun, nodding firmly at the Commander.

Spock released his captain and jumped lithely from one level to the next and over to the station. Immediately he began typing in a string of nonsense letters and symbols. Kirk watched him work for a moment, feeling a prickling of the tiny hairs on the backs of his neck and arms. A flicker of scarlet flashed in the corner of his eye, and he spun on his heel, completely disregarding the protest of his stinging arm.

Nothing. His head spun from the abruptness of the motion and the sudden drumming of his heart in response to the release of chemicals. Footsteps thundered above, the shouting escalating in volume as the seconds passed.

"You in?" he called over his shoulder, gaze locked on the door they'd come through. When there was no response, he craned his neck around. "Spock?"

The computer screen glowed bright blue on the snowy white skin of the back of Spock's neck and hand, his fingers clenched tightly around the source of the ribbon of red that had disturbed Kirk not minutes earlier. A woman with equally pale skin, made even whiter by the flaming red hair flowing down to her breast, glared up in fear at Spock's impassive expression.

"Identify yourself."

She continued to glower silently, her face slowly darkening in color as she struggled to breathe.

"Hey!" A second intruder, blonde and livid, directed a humming phaser at the center of Kirk's chest.

He quickly noted the similarities between the two and filed them away for later use. They shared the same body structure, cloned petite noses, and almond-shaped eyes. Too close to have no relations. Kirk pointed his own weapon at the younger girl's forehead.

"Let her go," she commanded.

"Lower your weapon."

The redhead struggled against Spock's grip, her fingernails scrabbling uselessly at his hands. His eyes darted from the blonde to Kirk and back again.

"Lower yours."

"We'll compromise."

"Tell the Vulcan to stop strangling my sister and we'll talk."

Spock, though unrelenting, looked to Kirk for orders. He nodded once. A hacking cough ripped through the woman's throat as she doubled over, bracing herself with one hand on her knee, the other wrapped loosely around her neck.

"There," Kirk told the blonde. "Now—on the count of three. We'll lower our weapons."

Receiving an approving look from the redhead, the younger sister scowled and gradually dropped the phaser to the floor. He set his on the ground as an act of good faith.

"Who are you?" the redhead demanded, voice raspy under stress.

"We asked first."

The siblings exchanged quick looks.

"Dorthea." Redhead.

"Eliza." Blonde. "Your turn."

"Jim Kirk, captain of the _U.S.S. Enterprise_. This is my First Officer, Mr. Spock."

"You work for the Federation?" Dorthea eyed him doubtfully, despite the logo in the upper left-hand corner of Spock's shredded shirt. "What are you doing on a Tarkan research vessel?"

"Probably the same thing you are."

Dark splotches stained their skin and the thin black sweats it seemed all prisoners had assigned, scarlet wheals and half-healed cuts stretched across what they could see of their arms and torsos.

"Some captain," Eliza scoffed, "getting captured—with your First Officer—and imprisoned. I can see why they hired you."

"Hey—"

Their attention was directed upward as footsteps thundered above, accompanied by ear-shattering bellows and the shaking of an explosion somewhere in the upper levels.

"I do not see how this argument will help in our escape."

All three pairs of eyes fixed on Spock, who looked up at them calmly. The emotional detachment in his Commander's eyes returned Kirk to the task at hand.

"Spock, get back on that computer." He faced the girls as Spock immediately restarted the process of hacking through the Tarkans' security system. "We're leaving here, with or without you. But if you want to come, you're welcome to."

"Yes."

"No."

The siblings glared at each other.

"Eliza!"

"Dorthea!"

While they argued softly between themselves, Kirk bent and picked the phaser back up, keeping it clutched in his hand and at alert. Over the clacking of Spock's fingers and the commotion above, he could just make out the sound of more stomping growing closer and closer to the door he and Spock had entered through. His heart stuttered into an anxious thrum as adrenaline shot into his blood and every muscle on his body tensed in preparation for battle.

"How's it coming, Spock?" he shouted back to him.

"I have gained access to the main communications line and am currently searching for the _Enterprise_."

"How long?" His eyes glued to the door as the pounding and voices increased in volume.

"Approximately four minutes and fifty-eight seconds until we are beamed aboard the _Enterprise_." A green bar stretched across the screen when Spock connected to Scotty's station.

"Make it two."

"Captain, that is impossib—"

"Just do it, Spock!" Kirk ordered over the rising din.

A large weight of some kind was thrown into the other side of the thick steel door, and Kirk raised his phaser.

"Are you coming with?"

The blonde—Eliza—stationed herself at his side and lifted her own phaser. "Yeah, we're going," she grumbled.

"Get back here," Dorthea ordered her sister angrily. "Let him take care of it."

"I'm not going to leave him to fight them all."

A second bang left the metal disfigured and groaning.

"She's right," Kirk said. "Get back."

His words were met by a fiercely blue gaze.

"You're wounded and bleeding hard."

He glanced down at the makeshift tourniquet and was shocked to see scarlet steadily soaking into the strip of fabric and spilling down his arm.

"I'm not going to let you fight alone when I can help."

Seeing a lost battle and giant waste of time, Kirk nodded and faced the door just as it collapsed through, a giant cloud of smoke rolling through the doorframe in thick waves that clogged the air and their lungs and obstructed their vision almost completely.

"Aim for the heart!" he advised before burying his nose in the crook of his arm and peering through the smog at the blurry dark outlines of the emerging into the cargo bay. Tears streamed from his eyes in an effort to moisten his eyeballs and he fired blindly at the closest approaching figure. It collapsed to the ground on impact, soon accompanied by another shot down by Eliza, located somewhere to Kirk's left. Holding his breath, he reached out wildly and groped around for her arm to pull her nearer to the edge. His fingers clamped around her wrist and he jerked her to his chest, exterminating two more guards, and with his arm wrapped tightly around her small body, launched them both over the edge to where he heard Spock yelling for Kirk and Dorthea yelling for Eliza.

"Captain!"

"Right here, Spock!"

The Vulcan's hand gripped his shoulder like a vise and yanked the man back, out of the general line of fire.

"Mr. Scott is locating our frequencies and will beam us up at any second." The sharp voice was unnervingly clear in the riot.

"Deedah!" Eliza's cry was suddenly fear-stricken and she tore from Kirk's grasp to find her sister.

"No!" Kirk lurched to grab her, but Spock held him still.

"Your return is most important," he reminded the captain.

Particles of light swelled in front of them and began revolving impossibly fast around their bodies. Kirk reached out desperately for her, for them both, guilt already pooling hot and thick in his stomach. His fingers brushed something soft and warm. Skin. He grabbed ahold tightly and then—

He blinked in the bright clarity of the transporter room, his head suddenly spinning. McCoy rushed at the group of people that had just materialized onto the pad, hypos and his tricorder at the ready. Kirk attempted to shove the infuriated, obsessive doctor to Spock, but found his strength sapping away the more his heartbeat slowed and McCoy easily overcame him. He struggled to see who he'd grabbed, and if whichever it was, if they'd grabbed their sister.

A shock of red blazed past a gap in McCoy's arms.

"Eliza?"

His stomach sunk.

The girl.

* * *

**A/N:** Hey! I've decided to rewrite Everlong, because when I went back and read it a couple days ago, I realized how much it sucked. So for those of you who are fans of it just the way it is, you can just keep on reading the original. But for those of you who feel the way I do, this is so much better! Please enjoy, read, and review! Merry Christmas!


	2. Chapter 2

**Everlong 2.0**  
**by Taylor-V**  
**Chapter 2  
****Summary: **_Rewritten. When Kirk and Spock escape from a Tarkan research vessel they've been held captive in, they take half-Mari Dorthea DeVult along, accidentally leaving her sister Eliza behind. With the girl's fate on his conscience, Kirk is compelled to assist Dorthea in the rescue of Eliza, but finds the eldest's concentration waning as her obsession with Spock's mind strengthens._  
**Disclaimer: **_Still don't own? Okay.__  
_

* * *

_A couple days earlier...  
_  
Smokey tendrils of consciousness pulled Kirk into a hazy awareness, but he kept his eyelids shut tight against the morning and the undoubted blue glow of the computer built into the opposite wall. It beeped at him persistently, after every fifth tone relaying the time and date.

"Stardate 2258.344," the cool female voice reeled. "0445 hours."

The thin pillow he'd smashed over his head did little to drown out the alarm and Kirk finally tossed the thing to the side and swung his legs over the edge of the mattress.

"All right, I'm up," he grumbled, knowing it would have no effect. The computer continued to wail at him.

Yanking on a pair of black sweats and an undershirt, Kirk stumbled to the screen to type in the pin number and dismissed the alarm before shuffling into the bathroom to brush his teeth. In ten minutes he was blinking away the stun of the bright lights in the halls of the early morning _Enterprise_. He took the empty lift down to the third level recreation room and took a quick four-lap round of the room to get his lungs pumping and his muscles nice and loose. Sliding on a pair of black boxing gloves, he strode to the left side of the room where a thick red bag hung from the ceiling, swaying innocently on the chain that suspended it. A torn black and white photograph of Muhammad Ali was taped to the front, and was the first place Kirk's fists connected with, sending the bag spinning backward in a futile attempt to escape the next flurry of punches he threw.

As a light sheen of sweat formed across his skin, his mind became sharper, more focused. Each step, each carefully choreographed bounce and swift strike of his fist, released more and more of the grogginess built up in his body, until the number of people passing the door had drastically increased and the sluggishness had completely evaporated from his limbs and his head.

He returned to his room for a hot shower and to dress properly and then dropped into the mess hall for a quick replicated breakfast of orange juice and an egg and sausage biscuit before heading up to the bridge. As always, Spock was the only crewman to precede him, working as diligently at his station as he had at the end of yesterday's shift. Sometimes Kirk wondered if he ever left, or if he worked all through the night, and all through the day. How much sleep did Vulcans need exactly?

"Good morning, Mr. Spock," he greeted, bounding down the steps and taking his seat complacently in the Captain's chair.

"Good morning, Captain," the half-Vulcan replied in a detached politeness. "I trust you slept well?"

"Very. And yourself?"

The small-talk was killing him. It was times when he found himself staring at the back of Spock's neck instead of looking into his eyes—times like these—that he longed for the friendship that Spock Prime frequently eluded to. It would be so much simpler, and infinitely more enjoyable, to work with him, he would think, if they were as close as they were supposedly supposed to be.

"As you are aware, Vulcans do not require the same amount of rest as humans—" he began, but Kirk cut him off with a "mmm" and a nod. So he had been there all night.

Sulu stepped in that second, relieving gamma helmsman Parker and slid into his station with an acknowledging nod at both Spock and Kirk. After that, it seemed like a stream of people were flowing in and out of the turbolift's doors, swiftly replacing the previous shift with Kirk's team.

"Where we headed, Mr. Sulu?" Kirk prompted once everyone had gotten settled in.

"Right now, sir?" the helmsman questioned.

"Right now."

"We're just sort of… floating around, sir." His response coaxed a laugh from Chekov next to him and he flicked the Russian teenager a small grin.

"How boring," Kirk responded lightly, and twisted in the chair to fix his gaze on the chocolate sheet of hair descending around the curves of a slender body at the Communications panel. "Uhura."

She directed the sleek angles of her face at him attentively, the silky smoothness of her coffee skin nearly glowing under the direct light. "Yes, Captain?"

"Give us something to do."

"I'll just pull something out of a hat, shall I?" she quipped, the demeaning expression on her features not reaching the sparkle in her eyes.

"Sift through channels," he suggested dismissively, waving his hand randomly in her general direction. "I don't know. There's got to be something out there—someone—that needs the Federation's assistance."

Despite her obvious doubt, Uhura swiftly flipped through every network she could pinpoint, half her attention focused on the blonde in the center of the bridge idly cleaning his fingernails and half directed on the empty static in her ear. "Captain, there's nothing I can—oh." The formal dialects of Starfleet Command suddenly rang clear as a bell against her eardrum. She shot Kirk an exasperated look, wishing very much to hold her discovery back from his arrogant smile. "We're being hailed by Starfleet Command," she grumbled reluctantly.

"And?" The smirk on his face was blinding and cocky.

"The Axanar High Order requests your presence, Captain, for an award ceremony to be held in two days," Uhura reeled off somewhat irately, remembering the small trip they'd made months earlier to the planet as diplomats for the Federation. "It seems you've received an award, and Starfleet Command wants you to be there personally to accept it."

The grin on Kirk's face expanded to incredible dimensions and shit-eating proportions. "Tell Starfleet we're on our way." He crossed his leg over his knee triumphantly as Uhura relayed the message. "Sulu, take us out."

"Yes, sir. Warp Two in three…"

"Course inlaid for Axanar," Chekov informed them, pressing buttons here and there across the panel in front of him.

"Two… one."

* * *

The twenty-three-hour trip to Axanar was uneventful and therefore restless. What time Kirk didn't spend amusing himself exploring every nook and cranny of his ship he spent shadowing Bones around medical bay, wondering how far he could push the CMO before he got thrown out on his rear end.

"We're busy, Jim," Bones growled the instant the blonde sauntered into the wing. "There's a chickenpox epidemic going around the gamma shift. Which reminds me." Bones popped open a nearby cabinet and removed the first vial in his sight, swapped it with the vial on the hypo in his hand, and smoothly and swiftly jabbed the nose into Kirk's neck. With a hiss, both from the hypo and between Kirk's teeth, the yellowy clear fluid had been injected and Bones tossed the empty vial into a box labeled 'biohazard'.

"What the hell was that?" Kirk yelped, rubbing his neck absently.

"A chickenpox vaccine," Bones replied shortly, striding through sickbay with Kirk close on his heels. "I happen to know that you've never had the pox, or the vaccine, and I'm not sure I could spend anymore time with you incapacitated without shooting myself."

"That's great, Bones. Thanks."

"Don't mention it." They stopped at the side of the farthest biobed, on which a broad-shouldered, muscular Ensign was slumped over, eyes glazed, fingers digging into the sides of the bed to control the need to scratch at the red bumps that had erupted all over his skin. "Seriously, Jim. I'm busy. Can't you go bug Scotty for a while?" Bones lifted the tricorder in his hand to scan down the length of the Ensign's body.

"I hate bugging Scotty," Kirk whined. "I always feel like I'm in the way. He loves his technical journals, or whatever…."

Hazel irises flickered at him in outraged disbelief. "And you're not in the way here?"

"You're still talking to me, aren't you?" He flashed a toothy grin at the doctor, who grumbled something inaudible before stepping around the corner of the bed.

The Ensign glared in annoyance at Kirk, who simply offered him a confident smile matching the one he'd given to Bones. McCoy returned almost instantly with a bottle of ointment and a handful of hypos and other supplies. He tried to sidestep his Captain, who'd already attempted the same, and they ended up caught in an awkward dance dotted with 'sorry's and nonsense vowels. Finally, Kirk gripped Bones by the shoulders, stepped clear to the left, and allowed him to pass by before turning to face him again.

"What about that goblin you made Commander," the doctor suggested as he scribbled words onto a prescription pad and shoved it and the ointment into the Ensign's arms. "Isn't it his job to deal with you? Take two of these every day for the next week."

For a second Kirk was befuddled, wondering what he was supposed to take and why, and then realized that Bones had returned to his job. The brunette Ensign nodded miserably and Bones moved onto the next patient, exhibiting the same symptoms.

"Spock's not a goblin," Kirk defended, feeling oddly offended for his Commander. "He's… a Vulcan."

"Yeah, well." Kirk could see Bones' attention slipping fast from him to his patient, and felt the game he was playing steadily slope downhill. "Couldja go back to the Vulcan, at least until I'm done here." His tone softened, but the look he fixed him with was still as hard and chastising as ever. "Look. Tonight I can get off a bit early. We'll… I don't know. Watch one of those old movies you like. Get completely drunk."

Kirk debated. At least, put on the front of it. He was always up for a wasted night with Bones. "_Arthur?_"

"Jim…" the CMO moaned at the mention of one of Kirk's favorite twentieth century flicks. If Kirk had seen it a hundred times, Bones had seen it ninety-nine and a half. "Yeah," he agreed reluctantly at the beginnings of a pout. "All right."

"Great. My quarters, 2100 hours."

Bones watched the captain strut out of the wing with wide eyes, feeling as if he'd just fallen right into place in one of Jim's lesser schemes. "Infant."

* * *

A sudden shock jolted Kirk awake and he tumbled from the edge of the bed with a painful thunk that throbbed through his hip. He groaned loudly, disregarding the sleeping Bones on the couch across from him. They might as well be up and in pain together. Bones jerked into consciousness and gazed bleary-eyed around the room, an empty bottle of Draylaxian whiskey hanging loosely from his fingertips.

"Wha… watimizit?" he mumbled incoherently. "D'we leave yet?"

"Man, what're you talkin' about?" Kirk groaned, throwing the crook of his arm over his eyes.

"I dunno. Hey. Turn the damn alarm off."

Kirk peered carefully under his arm to search for the source of the blue light and the annoying beeping that he now realized was the source of his pounding headache and the computer yelling at him to wake up. Rolling slowly onto his hands and knees, Kirk picked himself gingerly into a standing position, only long enough to shut the alarm off, and then slid down to the floor with his back against the wall.

"Computer, time."

"0447 hours."

Bones' eyes twitched over to Kirk. "What."

"Four forty-seven," Kirk translated, only half the sarcasm in his voice as he'd originally intended. "I work out in the mornings."

"Not this morning," Bones drawled groggily, dragging himself from his spot on the couch and staggering to where his coat rested on the foot of Kirk's bed. "Here." He pulled a bottle filled with a syrupy maroon liquid from the pocket and struggled with his clumsy, hung over fingers to unscrew the lid, and when he did, tipped his mouth back and swallowed down a large gulp of the tonic. It slipped from Kirk's fingers when Bones tossed it his way. "Take some," the doctor ordered. "It'll make you sleep for about five more hours, but when you wake up the hangover's gone."

"Bones, I don't have five hours—"

"Take it, Jim. You wanna show up for an award ceremony with bloodshot eyes and a migraine?"

Kirk studied his friend—and physician—for just a moment, but eventually took his advice and took a small swallow himself. Sticky fluid coated his tongue with the most putrid taste he'd ever experienced. "God, this is awful. What's in it?" It oozed down his throat like slime and a shiver of disgust rolled over his skin.

"Asparagus, cysteine, aspirin…."

"Asparagus?"

"Go to sleep, Jim."

It was only as he watched Bones fall back onto the couch, completely and totally asleep, that Kirk realized he too was inching toward the floor and the darkness behind his eyelids.

Bones stomped around his head, his footsteps vibrating the flooring around Kirk's ears as he attempted to pull himself back into sleep. "How am I supposed to go to sleep if you won't shut up," he grumbled resentfully. Though he had to give the man credit: the migraine he'd been developing had already dissipated, and his stomach ache faded to nothingness. The concoction worked fast.

"Captain. Wake up."

A voice that was definitely not Bones stole Kirk's attention and he whipped his head around, blinking up into the dark brown eyes and white complexion of his First Officer.

"Spock. What're you doing here?" he slurred, tongue weak from the haze of sleep. "It's five in the morning…."

The fine hairs of Spock's left brow lifted out of sight. "Captain, it is 0945 hours."

Kirk slammed into an upright position and inhaled so fast that he choked on air. Spock watched blankly as he nearly hacked up a lung, hovering slightly out of Kirk's eyesight.

"Computer, time," he managed between wheezes.

"0946 hours."

Clambering to his feet, he launched himself at a snoozing Bones stretched out over his couch. The liquor bottle they'd emptied clattered to the other side of the room when it came in contact with Kirk's foot. "Bones. Wake up."

The doctor squinted up at Jim in confusion. "Wasgoinon?"

"We're late. We overslept. Dammit, Bones, get up!"

"Jim, I called us in." Nevertheless, Bones slid unsteadily off the couch and braced himself momentarily on the wall. His eyes quickly scanned the room and attached to Spock. "What are you doing here?"

"We have arrived at Axanar," Spock informed them, his hands automatically locking themselves behind his back. "A landing party is expected to beam down to the surface for breakfast with the High Council. I felt it would be prudent to notify you."

"Yeah," Kirk sighed, dragging his fingers down the length of his face. "Yeah. Thanks, Spock. We'll be up in a few."

"The landing party, Captain," he reminded him stoically.

"Oh, yeah. Um… you, Uhura, Bones and myself. Simple and formal."

"Yes, Captain." And with that, he departed.

Kirk and Bones reveled in the silence—and lack of bodily aches—for as long as they could before finally agreeing to part ways and shower. They reunited in the transporter room twenty minutes later, the only lasting effects of their night the slightly purple half-moons under their eyes.

"Nice of you to join us, Captain," Uhura snipped, slender hand resting lightly on her hip, black utility belt draped across her hips in such a way that it enhanced her natural curve and Kirk couldn't help but stare appreciatively. Spock shot him a warning glare.

Kirk smiled lightly and surveyed his crew with a glowing pride warming the pit of his stomach.

Bones, the dashing southern gentleman with thick, feathered brown hair, stood at Jim's left with his arms crossed across the broad plane of his chest. Three gold medals hung from the formal red suit, one of which they all shared. His eyes glimmered in the light, shrouded in dark lashes as he squinted around at them all in scrutiny.

Uhura radiated beauty, her silk skin enveloped in an angelic halo, mocha eyes gleaming and dark locks cascading to the small of her back. Her dress hugged her body tightly, exhibiting her long legs and the sleek boots climbing to her knees. She also displayed three medals, and an extra pin above them.

And then Spock: tall, erect, and elegant in his spotless black uniform, snowy skin contrasting drastically with the dark fabric. His hands were, as ever, locked behind his back, though he stood not centimeters from Uhura's side.

He cocked his eyebrow at the swelling blonde captain. "Is there something the matter, Captain?"

"No," he grinned suddenly, leaping onto the transporter pad with an abrupt aura of contagious happiness. "Nothing wrong."

"Very well." Spock followed him on, taking the pad directly to Kirk's right.

Bones approached Kirk while fiddling with something in his hand, which, upon closer look, turned out to be another hypo that he leaned away from warily.

"What's that for?" he demanded, glaring at the bright red fluid in the vial attached to the end.

"It's a tri-ox compound," Bones responded shortly, jabbing it into his neck and releasing the fluid into his veins. "It lets you breathe easier in oxygen-deficient environments." He administered the hypospray to Uhura and himself before taking his place on the pad next to Uhura.

"I'm beaming you down to the courtyard in front of the Hall of High Council," Scotty informed them in his liquid Scottish drawl, making the last necessary adjustments to the transporter. "Ready when you are, Captain."

"Energize."

* * *

After a small—albeit very good—breakfast with the four members of the Axanar High Council, receiving much praise from the Lord Daktof, the crew was taken on a small tour around the Hall and then dismissed back to the _Enterprise _until 1900 hours, when they returned back for a much larger ceremony in a lush garden behind the Hall of High Council. Daktof presented Kirk with the Palm Leaf of Axanar Peace Mission before an audience of hundreds of admiring Axanar citizens, to which he accepted gratefully and then departed with Spock, Uhura, and Bones the instant they could exit the planet and its harsh conditions.

Kirk never thought he could love the _Enterprise_ anymore than he already had come to, but the warmth and recycled oxygen enveloping him and his crewmates the instant that familiar tornado of particles faded away revealed a whole new meaning of the word appreciation.

"Thank God," Bones grunted as Kirk shivered happily and Uhura buried herself into the Vulcan heat of Spock's arms. "I wasn't sure how much longer that last tri-ox would hold out." He'd had to inject each of them with three additional hypos after that first before they descended, with the exception of Spock, who Bones felt kind of bad for while he watched the half-Vulcan shudder in the icy cold.

"Uhura," Kirk barked, stepping off the platform to clap Scotty appreciatively on the shoulder. "Take Spock back to his quarters. Get him and yourself warmed up." He activated the intercom and channeled the bridge.

Uhura smiled at him thankfully, the bright spark in his eye encouraging her, and she led Spock to the door by the hand.

"Sulu. Take us out."

"Yes, sir." The helmsman's voice face appeared momentarily on the screen just to the right of Scotty's head and Kirk nodded in answer to the unasked question. Everyone had boarded in good health. "Warp Four directly along the Beta-Delta border in three. Two. One."

Sulu signed off and Kirk, suddenly overcome with the exhaustion of a long day of polite smiling and schmoozing, followed Spock and Uhura out of the transporter room with Bones at his side.

"I don't know what it is about diplomacy, but it beats the hell out of me every time," Jim remarked with heavy eyelids and a cracking voice.

"It's the stress of being someone that you're not." Bones slapped Jim on the back. "You did a good job."

"Thanks, Bones."

"Jim—what's shaking?"

Kirk blinked at his friend dubiously. "I think the slang's a little out of date."

"No!" Bones gripped the captain's arm and they froze in the middle of the hall. "Feel that? Something's shaking!"

Drowning everything else out of his senses, Kirk directed all his attention to the feel of his body quivering slightly. His eyes flicked up to the computer panel embedded in the wall, watching the blue light tremble and blur under his gaze.

"What is that?"

For the merest of seconds, Kirk and Bones locked eyes, and then an explosion so giant it slammed them into the opposite wall blasted the floor apart ten feet in front of them. The side of Kirk's head collided forcefully into the metal and bright white lights popped before his eyes in the grey smog billowing into the hall.

"B—Bones," he coughed, throwing his hand out blindly in search of the doctor while the other braced himself on the sturdiest thing he could find, whether the floor or the wall he didn't know. "Bones!" His fingers wrapped around something warm but bony: a wrist. He tugged harshly at the limb and McCoy's head fell limply onto Kirk's chest, a small dribble of scarlet seeping from his hairline. If it hadn't been for the gruff voices shouting an unfamiliar language and growing closer by the minute, he would've taken the time to inspect Bones' injury further, but that wasn't the case and once his balance had stabilized, Kirk hefted the unconscious doctor over his shoulders and made a beeline back to the transporter room.

Scotty was just running into the hall by the time he got there, and Kirk shoved him back inside, sealing the door tight while he dropped Bones carefully to the ground.

"What's going on?" Scotty gushed. "Felt like there was an explosion—"

"Scotty, stay. Here," Kirk instructed sharply. "Something's going on. I'll be back. Watch Bones. Do _not_ leave the room."

Leaving the Scotsman to ramble about his medical inefficiencies, he bolted back into the hall where the smoke had started to clear.

A giant gap had been blown into the floor feet from where he and Bones had been standing, at least ten feet in diameter, ripping off a portion of the left-hand wall and leaving the edges to crumble down to the next level. There was a ledge just large enough for Kirk to traverse on the very right side, but it would be difficult and he had to decide whether or not to just jump to the next floor while he ran. The flash of dark blue and snowy white skin quickly made the choice for him and Kirk launched himself through the hole and into the pile of rubble waiting below. His ankle protested against his abrupt landing on the mountain of plaster and steel and he nearly somersaulted his way down to Spock's feet, barely having a chance to register the situation before a thick-bodied intruder completely covered in heavy bronze armor lunged at his head. Kirk ducked and drew the phaser from his belt in one smooth movement, firing at the attacker on stun. He fell to the ground despite the metal coating every inch of his body, and Kirk bounded quickly to Spock's side.

"What's going on?" he shouted over the din, covering the Vulcan's back as he knocked one of the other intruders back and gripped that nerve bundle between the neck and the shoulder that instantly sent him sprawling.

"I do not know," Spock responded, sending another soaring away with a swift kick to the abdomen. "I was returning from walking Lieutenant Uhura to her quarters when I heard the explosion."

The armored beings suddenly ceased coming from all angles, instead opting to point and ramble incomprehensibly at Spock. Kirk braced himself against his First Officer, who opposed the pressure by leaning into his captain as well.

"What are they doing?" Kirk murmured as softly as possible considering the circumstances.

"They seem to have become interested in me."

"This is no time for self-absorption, Spock."

"Neither is it the time for jokes, Captain," he reprimanded, coaxing a small smile from Kirk's lips.

"Maybe you can communicate with them," Kirk suggested, straightening slightly as the intruders continued to babble excitedly, though he kept his phaser at the ready.

"It is, as you say, worth a shot." Spock smoothed his shirt habitually and stepped in front of Kirk with every intention of striding up to the unknown hostile beings. "This is a Federation Vessel," he called to them, taking slow steps away from Kirk. "What is your purpose in attacking us?"

They continued ranting in a foreign tongue, their words and actions becoming more exuberant.

"I order you to answer me!"

"Maybe they don't speak Engl—"

One of the bigger armored men suddenly charged at Spock, catching both him and Kirk by surprise and managing to wrap its big, clunky arms around his torso.

"Release him now!" Kirk bellowed, firing the phaser at the oncoming wall of them while Spock rolled around on the ground with the attacker. "Spock!" They were moving too fast, he couldn't get a good enough shot to fire without hitting his Commander. So he did the completely logical thing—and chucked his phaser to the side and threw himself into the fray, fighting through the shield of armored creatures to reach Spock's side. Over their heads and the constant battering of his ribs and chest, he could discern the biggest of them deliver a brutal backhand to Spock's jaw that splattered green blood over the walls and knocked him out cold.

"_Spock!_" He heard himself scream the name, felt it rip through his throat and into the air, but was stunned into abrupt silence with the _bang_ of unmistakable gunfire and an intense burning that ate through the joint of his shoulder. The pain was such that his brain stuttered and his vision wavered, long enough to give them a broad opening to smash something incredibly solid—a steel fist—into the top of his head.

It felt like his head was splitting down the center and tears welled up in the corners of his eyes. He pried them open to squint up at blinding white lights that seared painfully to the core of his brain. He had only enough strength to scan his surroundings for Spock and register the rough hand wrapped around his waist. The familiar bowl cut and pointed ears stuck out somewhere to his right, and the notion that he was in the company of his First Officer was enough to send Kirk back into unconsciousness.

* * *

**A/N**: I is hoping you like this, because I like it a heck lot more than the one before. =D Please, do, read and review, and most importantly, enjoy!


	3. Chapter 3

**Everlong 2.0**  
**by Taylor-V**  
**Chapter 3  
****Summary: **_Rewritten. When Kirk and Spock escape from a Tarkan research vessel they've been held captive in, they take half-Mari Dorthea DeVult along, accidentally leaving her sister Eliza behind. With the girl's fate on his conscience, Kirk is compelled to assist Dorthea in the rescue of Eliza, but finds the eldest's concentration waning as her obsession with Spock's mind strengthens._  
**Disclaimer: **_I... don't... own... *sob*_

* * *

"For God's sake, Jim! Will you just sit still?"

Utter chaos had ensued the instant they materialized into the transporter room of the _Enterprise_ and Kirk's attention was being dragged every which way by flashes of color and sharp cries and orders from the crewmates surrounding them. He ceased in his attempts to push Bones off him and pointed helplessly at his bleeding and bruised Commander watching the room before him rather stoically.

"No, take care of Spock first, he's worse off—"

"Nurse Chapel will handle him," McCoy said, glancing pointedly at the blonde already hurrying to Spock's side with a tricorder ready in her hand. He waved over one of the male nurses hovering with a gurney by the door. The nurse trotted over, trailing the stretcher behind him. "We have to get him into surgery right away. I need him on sixty mil—"

"Surgery?" Kirk yelped, struggling against the pressure exerted on his chest by both Bones' and the nurse's hands pushing him onto the bed.

"—ligrams of Propofol stat. Yes, Jim, surgery. Take him down to medbay and get him prepped. You'll be in and out in a few hours!" he called as the man pulled Kirk through the doors. "And—hey! Do _not_ start without me!"

"Boooooones!"

Ignoring his friend's wail, McCoy turned out of the doorway and allowed the steel panels to hiss shut as he returned to the fray. Kirk had been right—Spock was a bit worse off, in Vulcan standards. The laceration across his jaw was deep and glimmering an emerald so dark it was almost black. "Report," he demanded of Chapel.

"He's got a fracture along the left temporal bone and a moderately severe concussion. The obvious external injuries, some internal bleeding, and, Doctor, I'm not sure I'm reading this right…." She held the tricorder out to him for confirmation.

"What's it say?" He twisted the screen upright in his hand.

The space between McCoy's eyebrows steadily lessened until they'd been knitted together in a single, thick black line. His Adam's apple bobbed sharply.

"Nurse Chapel—get a stretcher."

She peered up at him with worried blue eyes. "Doctor—?"

"_Now_, Christine!" he barked.

"Yes, Doctor," she nearly whimpered, and then scampered away like a wounded bunny.

After the doors closed behind her, Bones gripped Spock's shoulder and guided him forcefully to the pad, insisting that he sit down and allow a manual check-over.

"What is the matter, Doctor?" Spock inquired, permitting the man to push him down to the pad.

"Lay down."

The half-Vulcan did as asked while McCoy fished through his bag for a thin flashlight that he lifted level to Spock's eyes. He flashed it directly into each eye in turn and observed as Spock's pupils dilated.

"Are you experiencing any gastrointestinal or chest pain, nausea, dizziness, or hot flashes?"

"No. I am quite well, considering the circumstances. As your superior officer, I order you to tell me the results of the tricorder scan, Doctor McCoy." Spock's inhumanely dark irises fixed unrelentingly on Bones' hazels.

"Your body is liquefying from the inside out. I need you to breathe in and out in slow, deep breaths."

"Liquefying?"

"Breathe."

Spock followed the doctor's instructions until McCoy removed the stethoscope from his ribs and jotted something down on his PADD.

"The tissues of your organs are deteriorating, and in any matter of days, will bleed out of every orifice of your body—dammit, Christine! Where the hell is that stretcher?" he snarled into the intercom. "I don't understand what the hell could cause this, unless you contracted Ebola on that goddam ship, but the tricorder didn't pick up anything even close to that—"

"It's not the Ebola virus."

Both Spock and Bones' eyes flicked to the redhead Scotty'd beamed up with them. Her eyes were red and swollen from crying.

"Well obviously you've got some experience with it, so would you be so kind as to inform me on what the hell _it_ is?" McCoy growled.

"I couldn't tell you," Dorthea muttered, "but it'll go away in a couple days. Until then… it would probably help him through if you could put him out."

"W—so you can't—" Bones struggled visibly to reel in his temper. "You don't know what it is, but you know it'll end in 'a couple days'. Can you be a bit more _specific_, please?" he spat.

She stepped uncertainly over to where they sat while she spoke. "I've just seen it happen to my sister and a couple others, including myself. It's just a starter, though. You're lucky to have gotten out with only that."

"Yeah, real lucky," Bones scoffed, assisting Spock into a standing position when Nurse Chapel reappeared with a gurney. "Let's go. Get him into medbay while I'm in surgery, and as soon as Jim's out I'll be there. Hook him up to a halter monitor and keep a close eye on him," he ordered the woman.

Nurse Chapel nodded and wheeled Spock out of sight.

"You!" He beckoned Dorthea close, and then gripped her bony wrist with a steely grasp, his calloused fingers chafing against her skin as he yanked her out of the transporter room and into a severely damaged, but brightly lit corridor. "Come with me."

"As long as you're here and the only one with some knowledge of those bastards, I'm using you to my advantage," he informed her while they walked. "My name is Doctor Leonard McCoy, I'm the Chief Medical Officer on this ship, and I've got people to keep from dying. So any information you have on what is happening to Commander Spock, I need. What was your name?"

They stepped into a turbolift and Bones pressed a lighted button to take them down.

"Dorthea DeVult."

He pulled the tricorder from his pocket as they descended and ran it from her temple down, and after saving the recordings for a later time, drew her other wrist away from her chest and began prodding and poking at the teal bruises blotched across the white of her skin around the joint.

"Colles' fracture," he murmured, maybe to himself, and inspected it closer before easing it back to her side. "I can take care of that when I'm finished with Jim and Spock. Or I'll have Nurse Chapel do it. Christine!" They strode quickly into medbay, Dorthea trailing a step behind the harassed CMO.

"Yes, doctor?" she piped up from where she was busy inserting a needle into the top of a bristling Spock's hand.

"Damn—I forgot. Never mind, continue." He waved her on and she resumed feeding the IV into Spock's veins. "Uh… you're going to have to wait here until I'm done with Jim. Try not to roll." Sitting her down on a biobed, McCoy disappeared quickly into his office and returned with a hypospray he prepared while he walked. "Here—this will knock you out for a while. I can't promise too long, though." Without another word, he injected the sedative into her neck and Dorthea's eyelids fell shut immediately, her body falling limply onto the bed. Bones strode out of the main area and into one of the back operation rooms, snapping on a pair of Latex gloves and a mask before pushing into the sterile area to operate on his fast fading captain and friend.

Kirk gazed up at him with foggy blue eyes and a loopy smile.

"Why isn't he out yet?" McCoy growled at the anesthesiologist.

"I gave him the highest dose possible," the grey-haired man replied with an exasperated shrug.

"Bones!" Kirk slurred. "You said not to let them start without you, and I didn't let them. I stayed awake until you came so they didn't start without you."

"That's great, Jim. Thanks." He nodded at the anesthesiologist, and the elderly man handed him the clear face mask. "Okay," he said soothingly, fitting the mask around Kirk's nose and mouth. "I need you to count backward from ten. Can you do that?"

"Sure, Bones. Sure." Kirk slapped his hand lazily on McCoy's wrist and pulled the mask away. "I stayed awake so they would wait for you, Bonesy, ya know? They were gonna start and I didn't let them. Didja know that, Leonard? Leo? Can I call you Leo?"

"No, Jim. Now count."

"From ten, Leo?"

Air expelled sharply from Bones' nose. "Yes. From ten."

"Okay." Kirk took in a deep breath as Bones refitted the mask onto his face. "Ooh, it smells like… like bubble… gum…." His blonde head tilted slowly backward as his eyelids drooped, and then he dropped abruptly into unconsciousness.

"All right," Bones sighed. "Ensign, hand me that scalpel…."

* * *

"Polymeric diripase."

Bones slapped a thin manila file on the personal biobed Kirk had perched upon opposite McCoy's desk. Kirk picked the folder into his slender fingers and flipped open to the first page. "Polywhatsahoosit?"

"Polymeric diripase," Bones repeated with a roll of his eyes. "It's a type of enzyme administered by injection that rips apart chemically bonded molecules—in this case, individual strands of DNA."

"What about it?"

"There was a considerably large amount detected in the spinal fluid we removed during his LP."

Kirk's eyebrow flicked upward, and at the same time his ears perked at the distressing sound of retching coming from just outside Bones' office. "How much longer will this last?" he asked grimly.

"I can't be sure. Assuming they injected him with it the second day you were there, and based on the apparent half-life—"

"Bones."

The doctor glared at him, irate that his explanation was interrupted. "A week, if he survives it. But if _she's_ any indication, he'll be fine." He nodded at Dorthea, who was laying almost completely still on the biobed. The two of them stared at her blankly while she gazed at the ceiling.

"Are there any… _mental_ damages?" Kirk asked doubtfully.

"Not that I can see," Bones responded. "All her brain scans came out good. A little low on dopamine, but that's natural. You said her sister got left on the ship?"

"Yeah." Guilt bubbled in the pit of Kirk's stomach at the sudden image of the determined blonde that popped up in his mind. He adjusted his shoulder carefully, letting the bandages pull lightly on his skin to fit into place, and then jumped off the bed.

"Where do you think you're going, Jim?" Bones demanded. "I've still got to finish your follow-up!"

"To talk to her."

First stop, however, was at Spock's side. Sweat shone on his face, and his pupils were blown, but in model Vulcan behavior, he greeted the Captain promptly and with no waver to his voice whatsoever that Kirk could detect. Kirk knelt at Spock's head and smiled softly.

"You know, you don't have to do that. You might be on your deathbed."

"Doctor McCoy has full confidence that I will return to my station in a matter of days," Spock responded, and this time Kirk could hear the strain in his voice from the stress of speaking so long without a breath in between words.

"That depends," he said. "How are you feeling? And none of that Vulcan draw-your-own-conclusions crap," he tacked on as Spock opened his mouth.

He thought he saw a flicker of annoyance in Spock's darkened eyes, but a millisecond later it was gone.

"I feel as if my body has been torn into two separate pieces and rearranged incorrectly," Spock stated starkly.

"Well. You're not wrong."

"I am aware." A sudden fit of coughing shook his paled frame, droplets of sweat falling from his forehead to pool on the damp sheets of the bed. The blankets slipped down to reveal a thick layer of bandage and gauze wrapped tightly around his bare torso, and Kirk winced for him.

"Spock," he crooned sympathetically, pushing him gently back down to the pillow. "We can put you out."

"That—will not be necessary, Captain." His cheeks were tinted green, and his breath came now in shorter bursts.

Kirk jumped to his feet and growled, overwrought with sudden anger and frustration that he couldn't help his First Officer—not because there was close to nothing he could do, but because the damned Vulcan was too damned proud. "Cut that out! You're sick! You need help! There's nothing to be ashamed of!"

"Incorrect, Captain—I need simply t-to wait for the symptoms to subside."

"Dammit, Spock." He peered down helplessly into Spock's bemused, black eyes, and felt his knees buckle, bringing him again to the tile. "Just let us take care of you, huh?"

Spock's chest rose and fell with the labored gasps of breath he struggled to pull in, but his eyes never left his captain's. Kirk continued to frown at him sadly, until the pain grew to be too much, and Spock squinted for the smallest of moments, the oxygen catching in his lungs.

"That's it." He jumped up again and motioned for Bones to come over. "Knock him out."

"Jim, I don't know how the anesthetic will react with that enzyme in his system—"

"I don't care. He's in pain. Look at him," Kirk insisted, leaning further into his friend in hopes of hiding his words from Spock's usually sensitive pointed ears. Bones' eyes trailed reluctantly to the suffering man on the bed. "You think he can take that much longer conscious? He won't ask for it, but he needs to be sedated." His bright blue irises pleaded with Bones, and the doctor gave in to his friend with a great sigh.

"Yeah, all right. I'll be right back. But if he dies, it's on your neck."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence."

Bones grunted in response.

He turned his attention back to Spock, whose fingers were clamped around the sheets below him, but his eyelids had snapped open again and he was fixing Kirk with a glare composing of a mix of unspoken gratitude, agony, nausea, and embarrassment. He didn't dare grab the Vulcan's hand, as was custom for human comfort, but instead lightly gripped his shoulder. "You'll be okay," he assured him.

After a minute of concentrated effort, Spock softly ground out,

"I trust you, Jim."

Bones arrived with the sedative and injected it into the IV stream. Spock slipped under with his eyes still locked on Kirk's face. They hesitated for a couple minutes by his bedside, waiting for any type of reaction.

"Well?" Kirk inquired after a couple more. "Is he good?"

He turned to Bones, who was still scowling at his tricorder. "Yeah, I think he's stable."

"All right." And with a last look at Spock, he departed from his bedside and moved instead to the girl's. "Hey."

Her wrist was wrapped in a cast and resting across her abdomen, and she turned her head to look at him blankly. Kirk's voice slipped into her head easily, the barriers she usually erected in her telepathy down and useless in her state of depression—and slight pain. His thoughts mimicked his spoken words exactly.

"Tell me what happened to Spock."

Dorthea was momentarily thrown off by the complete honesty in his thoughts and actions, something she'd only ever encountered in the company of her fellow Mari. Since everyone could connect to everyone else's minds, no one had anything to hide. For humans, such openness could only be a dangerous, naïve thing.

"I told you what happened to him. So did your doctor."

"I want more," Kirk demanded. "Why would they do this to him?"

She shrugged in the best way she could with the cast on her arm, and tilted her head to the side, sifting through his thoughts as unobtrusively as possible. All pretense of privacy had been abandoned once she and her family had been threatened. It didn't help, either, that she spent a good amount of time underground with the rebellion on her home planet, partaking in the black market of violent thoughts, where such respect for others' minds and private, personal thoughts wasn't held on such a high pedestal as above ground.

"Scientific experiments, I think," she informed him, not finding anything incriminating in his immediate mindset. "On half-breeds."

"Half-breeds," he repeated, the cogs in his brain whirring. "Like Spock. Half-human, half-Vulcan."

Dorthea nodded.

"You're half-Vulcan?"

"Half-Mari," she corrected. "Telepaths. I don't think they're too picky."

"They, the Tarkans, right?"

Again, she nodded. Pink flooded Kirk's cheeks in rage. "Why would they take my First Officer?" he thundered, pulling himself to full height above her.

"I told you, experiments."

"Experiments are spurred by a problem needing solved. What was theirs?"

"Half-breeds, from what I heard. They wanted to eliminate them—dissolve their—_our—_ human halves."

Kirk's mind spun around the information, trying to file the anger and indignation away for later, when he could box it out productively instead of yelling at an innocent girl caught up in the crossfire.

"And they abducted you, too?"

At this, her bright green eyes dimmed. "My sister. I was rescuing her when you showed up—we had planned an attack on the Tarkans, that's what was happening. There was supposed to be a ship waiting for us, but—they destroyed it." The white flash of an explosion scrambled to the forefront of her memory. "We were going to try to find a way out of the cargo hold, to the shuttlebay, but you led them to us." She watched Eliza's face flash in front of his mind's eye, felt the guilt pool in his stomach as if it were her own, mixing with her own. "Her name is Eliza."

Apology bled into his thoughts.

"I'm s—"

"Don't be. It was my fault. I should have made her stay with you." Wetness glimmered in the corners of her eyes, and she quickly swiped at them with her good arm. "She should be here now instead."

Despair flooded her face, and Kirk let out a huge sigh and flopped down beside her. "Look—don't worry. We'll get your sister back."

"You don't—"

"You have my word."

The sincerity in his thoughts and the persistence in his ice blue eyes silenced her for the time being. His mind enveloped her in a sort of blanket—warm, and comfortable, and safe. From what she knew already, he was a good and honest man. Trustworthy.

Doctor McCoy slid up next to Kirk and scowled down at her. "Well, you're free to go," he drawled, eyes dark and somewhat irritated, though she felt that this was a natural look for him. "Nurse Chapel has arranged one of the guest living quarters for you, with a couple sets of clean clothes."

"I'll take you there," Kirk offered, wrapping his hand under her arm and lifting her out of the bed and into a standing position.

"Take a shower, get yourself cleaned up," Bones advised, and she would've been offended if his thoughts hadn't suggested that he was simply referring to her state of comfort. "I'll want to check you over in a couple days, make sure there's no lasting side effects of those experiments." _So I can take care of my people._

She nodded, more at his thoughts than his words, and allowed Kirk to guide her out of sickbay and into the brightly-lit corridor.

He studied her intensely as they walked through the hall toward guest quarters, noting every exhausted yawn and the dark blue circles underneath her eyes, each wince away from bright light. He wondered how long she'd been held captive in one of those cement boxes, with no light, and probably very little food, enduring endless torture comparable to that of Spock's current condition.

"Three weeks, five days," she stated bluntly, followed by a colossal yawn.

Kirk jumped, stuttered for words momentarily, before remembering that she was half-Mari, and could read minds.

"Eliza was only there a couple days longer. I needed to get her back."

His eyes fell and he stopped abruptly to type in a code that slid open the door to her temporary quarters. "Lights."

An orange glow instantly illuminated a long bed on one side of the room, a tiny mahogany end table at its side equipped with a lamp and a single drawer, and a larger desk made of the same wood on the wall perpendicular to the bed. To their left was a closet, and next to that a door propped open into a small bathroom.

"It's nice—thank you," she remembered after crawling onto the bed. Her head swam with exhaustion, and her eyelids drooped lower.

"Yeah. Get some sleep, and we'll talk when you wake up."

She nodded, and as soon as she allowed her head to touch the pillow, her breathing evened into that of deep sleep. Kirk watched her only a minute more, then left her in peace and headed back to the bridge.

The crew jumped to attention as he stepped through the lift doors, and he was immediately bombarded with questions.

"Keptin, ze First Officer, is he okay—?"

"What happened, Scotty said—"

"Captain, we're being hailed by the Federation headquarters."

He nodded at Uhura and slid rightfully into his chair, settling back into the cushion with an overwhelming rush of comfort and familiarity. She opened the channel and Admiral Pike's face fizzled into view.

"Captain," he greeted with a nod, his skin gaunt and wrinkled, hair considerably greyer since their last encounter.

"Admiral Pike." He lifted his hand to his forehead in a quick salute.

"Glad to see you're in one piece," Pike stated with a tight smile.

"I wish you could say the same for Commander Spock." Kirk's own eyes tightened.

"Commander Spock?"

"The Tarkans injected him with some kind of chemical—" He searched around for the phrase Bones had used. "A—a polymeric diripase. It temporarily rearranges the DNA of biracial entities."

"Temporarily?" the Admiral questioned with a lifted brow.

"Bones gives it about a week before he returns to normal. We've obtained… information on the process." He withheld Dorthea's presence for the time being. There wasn't any need to involve her in the matter just yet. She would probably just be whisked away for questioning, anyway, and that would take away the only source of information from the inside of the Tarkans' operation they had. "But he still thinks it's too early to say if there will be any lasting effects."

The bridge fell completely quiet, if it was possible to become any more so. The thought of their impervious half-Vulcan Commander being anything less… was unthinkable.

"Tell Doctor McCoy to hurry up the process," Pike ordered after a moment, apparently lost in the disabling notion of a less-than-Spock Spock himself. "I want the Commander at top functioning level as soon as possible. You have to continue your voyage to Qo'noS."

Kirk nodded his understanding. "Yes, sir."

"Pike, out."

The screen flickered to black, and then there were stars once more.

"Keptin?" Chekov said timidly. "Is it zat bad?"

Kirk's weary gaze fell on Uhura. "He's out," he told her, "but he might still be able to hear us. If you want to go visit him in sickbay, I give you leave."

She immediately dropped her earpiece and disappeared into the turbolift.


	4. Chapter 4

**Everlong 2.0**  
**by Taylor-V**  
**Chapter 4  
****Summary: **_Rewritten. When Kirk and Spock escape from a Tarkan research vessel they've been held captive in, they take half-Mari Dorthea DeVult along, accidentally leaving her sister Eliza behind. With the girl's fate on his conscience, Kirk is compelled to assist Dorthea in the rescue of Eliza, but finds the eldest's concentration waning as her obsession with Spock's mind strengthens._  
**Disclaimer: **_I still don't own... *twitch twitch*... man, this sucks..._

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Condensation trickled down the plane of the mirror hung on the guest bathroom wall. Dorthea watched its path for a moment until it split in two, and turned away from her battered reflection. The chartreuse remnants of previous bruises ghosted across her chest and ribs, though the external pain had long since disappeared. She slid on the grey sweatpants and thin black sweater left for her the night before.

Doctor McCoy had paged her awake around three in the afternoon with instructions to return to the medical wing as soon as possible, but the need to be clean overpowered her, and as soon as possible became an hour later, when she finally walked into the wing. He bristled.

"'Bout damned time," he growled, pointing at the nearest empty biobed.

She hopped up and snapped her knees together, resisting the urge to swing her legs idly. "I'm sorry—I needed to shower."

McCoy glanced over at her damp red hair, and returned to where he was digging around his desk for a tricorder. "I just need to get your readings—check for any lasting effects of the experiments."

"For him?"

Spock was lying on the biobed across the wing, curtains drawn halfway around, unconscious and unmoving except for the occasional twitch in the tendons of his neck or eye.

"Yes."

He knew there was no reason to lie to her—she'd read his thoughts anyway. Dorthea flushed a light, blue-silver in shame. On a normal day, she wouldn't consider barging into someone's mind with no concern for their wishes or privacy. But it hadn't been a normal day for a month.

"How is he?"

"As far as I can tell? In pain. All his readings say that he's in the thick of it. Organs have been completely rearranged, totally unstable." He scanned the tricorder down the length of her body. "You know anything about that?"

She shrugged and allowed herself to be guided down to the bed by a firm hand on her shoulder. "It sounds about right. He should only have a couple days left."

McCoy blanched and fixed her with such a penetrating glare that she could feel the burn of his hazel irises deep in the marrow of her bones. "If you're telling me—"

"—that he'll be fine in about two days," she interrupted him, interpreting the waves of shock and discontent rolling off him like heat.

Reluctantly, he pulled his gaze off her and returned to his work, silently reading through her results. "How much exactly have you seen of this?" he asked after a minute, reaching around her to probe underneath her ribs.

Dorthea winced at the pressure before responding. "Like I said—me, my sister, a couple others. Enough to last me a lifetime."

"And when was the last time that you were—subjected to it?" The damage looked at least a week old, but deeper into the muscle, the wounds were still almost fresh.

"I don't remember. Two weeks?" A sharp twist of pain jolted from where his fingers were exploring her side and she jerked away with a strangled whimper. "Ow—"

"Sorry," he grunted, jotting something down on his PADD. "How would you rate the pain, on a scale of one to ten?"

She massaged the tender area, worrying her bottom lip with her teeth and squeezing her eyelids shut. "Um… seven? I guess."

As she attempted to rub the dwindling pain away, a second familiar touch pushed at the ends of her nerves. Her eyes flicked over to the drugged Vulcan across the wing. "Hey—he's waking up."

He offered no sign of consciousness except for the twitch of his fingers.

"Wh—no, are you sure?" McCoy's attention immediately deviated to the First Officer. "He doesn't—"

"Yes, I'm sure." She scrambled up from where she lay, disregarding the twinge in her pestered injury for the gradual rise of agony radiating from him. Her feet carried her quickly to the opposite wall, tailed by the doctor with his arms full of medical instruments, and knelt at Spock's side. His eyes tightened even further, followed by his lips, before they flashed open and he was glaring right into her own with dark brown irises nearly swallowed by his pupils. She jumped at the sudden intensity. "Commander Spock? Can you hear me?"

Ignoring the flash of the tricorder down his body—or possibly just oblivious to it—Spock clenched his eyes shut once for yes. There was no hint of sweat anywhere on his arms or face or chest, but his skin had taken on a decidedly lime tint, pulsing pounding so hard that his veins were throbbing underneath the thin, pale layer of flesh. The string of thoughts spiraling through his mind were jumbled, indecipherable, a result of both the chemical, and blinding pain nearly invisible from the outside.

"The enzyme completely obliterated the anesthetic," McCoy noted with something akin to irate awe in his voice. "I'll have to get him a stronger dose, but I don't know how much more he can take without it causing permanent damage… what are you doing?"

"Just going to try to relax him." Dorthea lifted herself onto the bed, folding her legs underneath herself and gently guiding Spock's head over to her lap. With feather light touches, she reached over him and slowly brushed her fingers from his wrists, over steel tendon and the pocket of his elbow, massaging her way lightly up his biceps and pausing to knead the tensed muscle of his shoulders.

"I don't think Mister Spock would appreciate—" the doctor began, but his voice cut off as Spock's heartbeat fell to a slow jackhammer.

"I told you," she reminded him softly, moving her hands to his neck, just behind his jaw, where she worked the muscles there until they were pliant. "My sister and I went through the same thing. It helps if you relax, and just let it take its course."

The white knuckles tearing holes into the sheets fell limp as Dorthea's fingers rubbed circles into Spock's temples. His eyes fluttered shut.

"Well?" McCoy inquired after a moment. "Is the pain gone?"

"No. Just… less."

"Considerably, then, judging by his reaction." The doctor let his arms fall.

She shook her head. "Any amount of 'less' is a reprieve." Her heart panged for the exhausted being that lay limp and helpless across her legs. "He's still got some to work through."

With a distraught sigh, McCoy palmed his face and turned away. "I'll get that extra dose."

As he walked past the intercom, it flickered to life and whistled shrilly. McCoy punched it on.

"Sickbay, this is Doctor McCoy."

"_Bones, how is he?"_ The distressed tones of Kirk's voice passed through the channel before his features materialized onscreen.

"The anesthesia wore off."

The captain started forward in his seat, about ready to pounce through the screen and ascertain his First Officer's safety for himself. Bones immediately backtracked, his eyebrow twitching upward toward the blonde mess of tangles where he'd just run his fingers.

"But the girl was able to stabilize him for a couple minutes while I go get a stronger dose."

"_Dorthea?"_ Kirk asked dubiously. _"What'd she do?"_

"Just massaging techniques. I'm going to get the anesthetic now."

Kirk pushed on his eyeballs with the heels of his palm, breathing in the pressure and the way it seemingly calmed the nerves into his brain, for a moment blissfully numb. He had no idea where this abrupt impulse to be with Spock came from, but all of a sudden he wanted nothing more than to sit at his bedside and urge him back to health. Spock Prime had mentioned something earlier about the possibility that his time, and Kirk's time, might attempt to realign themselves. Maybe the James T. Kirk that the elder Vulcan knew was prodding his way into this Kirk—into _him._

"Yeah, all right," he nodded resignedly. "Go on. Keep me posted."

"_Jim, I can't keep you posted if you keep checking in every twenty minutes. Let me do my job."_

Bones signed off with a shrewd glower, and the com went black.

Finger-combing his hair one last time, Kirk lifted his attention from the screen on the armrest of his Captain's chair and instead focused up at the hypnotic, starry screen before him.

Two things happened in the millisecond that followed.

First: scarlet burned across his vision, leaving him jumping out of his chair and completely blinded for a good five seconds.

Second: Sulu grappled for purchase at the helm, scrambling to reclaim control of the _Enterprise_ as she angled off-route with a grating, ear-shattering whine.

"Captain, shields at eighty-five percent," Sulu informed him shakily, righting himself in his chair and scanning the dark expanse before him for any hint of what just knocked the ship out of his control.

"That was a photon torpedo," Kirk nearly growled, stepping toward the helm. "Mister Chekov. Find who fired."

"Right away, Keptin." The young Russian fiddled with the console. "Klingon Warbird approaching, sir. Photons locked."

"All right." He prowled around the chair, fists clenching and unclenching and pressing against his lips. "Mister Sulu, arm photons. Prepare for battle, but don't be too hasty. Don't engage unless absolutely necessary. Miss Uhura, make contact with the Warbird."

She nodded and faced her consol.

A whistling pulled Kirk away from the window, and he opened his intercom.

"Kirk here."

"_Jim, what's going on up there?"_

He peered around Bones' concerned expression to find Spock on his stomach, still laying out on the biobed with Dorthea's hands slowly working the cramps in his back. "Is he all right?"

"_Fine. What's going _on?_"_

"We're figuring that out now."

"_Figuring it out now? What do you mean—"_

"How's Spock?"

A sigh deflated Bones' chest and he glanced around him. "Jim. Let us take care of Spock. Focus on what's happening."

"_But I—"_

"Dammit, Jim. I'm a doctor—let me be a damned doctor! And _you_ be the captain of this ship! You're the one that wanted it so damned much. Now you've got it, so what are you going to do with it?"

He stared his friend down until he felt the blonde submit, and watched as the molecule of anxiety washed from his face, to be replaced instead with that familiar arrogance he was so—though Bones would never, in a million years, admit this to the boy—fond of.

A second blast of plasma shook the _Enterprise_ and her crewmembers, tossing Dorthea the two feet to the floor, where she cracked her elbow on the tile and froze as pain radiated immediately up from the bone. Spock followed her down, and she reacted quickly enough to stretch her arms out and absorb some of his weight to cushion the fall.

Uhura yelled something over to Kirk from the other side, and he wished Bones a short good luck before signing off.

"What's going on?" Dorthea called over to him while attempting to restrain a struggling Spock. "What's that shaking?"

"I don't know," McCoy nearly growled, kneeling down to inspect the bruises swelling on her arm, thanking whatever God might exist that the chicken pox epidemic had ended and medbay was relatively clear. His attention could be completely centered on the Vulcan. "But I'm getting damned tired of the attacks. We're the goddamn Federation. We literally come in peace!"

Spock suddenly turned over in Dorthea's hands and shoved off of the floor, hoisting himself into an unsteady standing position, hunched over as the pain flared and faded and breathing deep.

"What do you think you're doing?" McCoy jumped up and attempted to reposition him onto the bed, but Spock still reserved enough strength to hold him away.

"The Captain—" he panted, "—is in need—of my assistance—" A sharp cough ripped his eyes from the door they'd fixed on in determination.

"The _Captain_ needs you _alive_," the doctor corrected, pushing harder on Spock's shoulders, but after a third tremor that sent McCoy and Dorthea tumbling, he disappeared through the doors with nothing but the _whish_ of hydraulics. McCoy huffed, exchanging looks with Dorthea before they both bolted after him. "I've got to get him a bell collar or something."

Spock stumbled, half-blind, into the turbolift and smacked the button for the bridge. His head and stomach spun as he sped upward and he braced himself against the wall for balance.

He was behaving illogically—he knew this from the shame that cropped up in his stomach habitually when he showed anything but Vulcan control. His body needed rest and meditation, and ached with every movement like someone was melting his visceral organs with flame, but the desperate look with which Kirk gazed at him through the com inlaid into the wall called forth the sudden burning need to be at his Captain's side. Spock himself was a very loyal creature, and couldn't let Kirk fight on his own in good conscience.

The doors hissed open and he tumbled onto the bridge, the brightness so much _more_ here, with blinking lights and buttons flashing blue and red and every manner of color at him almost mockingly—again, his thoughts had turned illogical. Summoning his strength, he managed to descend the steps and approach behind the blonde issuing orders with his stern "Captain voice", as Spock had heard the crewmates refer to the sharp tenor his voice reverted to in such dire situations.

"Captain. Commander Spock, reporting—" he swallowed a cough "—for duty."

Kirk whipped around, expression one of shock. Spock could just hear the thrumming of his startled heart underneath the commotion and the ringing of his own sensitive ears.

"Spock!" he yelped, leaping the stairs to his chair and landing gracefully in front of him. "What the hell are you doing up here?" He peered wildly around his shoulder. "Where's Bones?"

"Here, Jim," the doctor gasped, sliding through the doors with Dorthea at his tail. "Sorry—he escaped before we could catch him."

Freezing at Kirk's glare, Bones fell to a stop a foot away, but Dorthea didn't get the hint and skidded next to Spock. She wrapped her hand around his wrist and tugged.

"Come on, this isn't going to help you—"

"Captain, I refuse to remain inactive during this crisis situation. I am fit for duty." Lie. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he noted this. Vulcans didn't lie; they had no reason to.

Kirk's eyes softened as they moved from Bones, shifting guiltily from foot to foot, to Spock. "I appreciate the offer, Commander, but you need to get back to medical bay and rest."

"It is illogical to not utilize all available crewmembers—"

"Available? Spock, you're as green as a fucking avocado—"

"—in such an emergency as this—"

"—pupils as big as them. No, Spock, get down to medical bay, and that's an order!"

Clasping his hands behind his back, he straightened his back as much as possible without coaxing a physical response to the pain from his facial muscles and stared the Captain directly in the eye. "No."

"No?" Kirk repeated, stunned. Was he disobeying a direct order? "Are you disobeying a direct order?"

"I believe I am, Captain."

Dorthea watched their interaction in annoyed fascination. Why couldn't he just listen and go sit down? The enzyme still residing in his body blocked his mind from hers, so scrambled were his insides, so she couldn't read the Vulcan directly, and had to rely on the (lack of) emotional vibes that shimmered around him. But Kirk was as open as ever. She felt distinctly as his resolve cracked, bleeding amusement and exasperation—and something akin to pride.

"All right."

"_Jim!_" McCoy's thoughts jolted to a halt, and then exploded in a tangled web of indignant disaster.

"Take your station, Commander," Kirk continued, ignoring his friend.

Spock nodded once and stiffly stepped to his panel before collapsing too easily into the chair. Dorthea rolled her eyes; men were the same _everywhere_.

"What the hell are you thinking?" McCoy snarled into Kirk's ear. "That man needs _rest_—the stress is going to put him in cardiac arrest."

"Relax," Kirk insisted, falling back into his chair. "You know as well as I do that he just needs to do something—feel useful. You're going to make him feel helpless _and_ sick? Go right ahead. But I'm not going to be a part of it."

But Bones read him better, as well as Dorthea and her telepathic tendencies. Kirk just wanted Spock at his side, even if it meant being a little selfish.

"Shields at sixty percent, Captain," Sulu called, fidgeting with something on the helm before him.

"All right." Kirk hesitated slightly before giving the order to fire. "Aim to knock them off-balance—not to destroy." He still didn't like taking lives if the situation didn't call for it, and he felt there might've been a misunderstanding for the unprovoked attacked. It just made Dorthea warm even further to him.

Her race wasn't the violent type, actually banning violent thoughts from daily lives, where they instead flourished under the gaze of the government in the black market that she sought assistance from in rescuing Eliza nearly a month before. Kirk was naturally a very kind, caring person, from his innermost thoughts. She could relate well—he reminded her of home, something she missed dearly.

The Warbird rolled helplessly against the power of the _Enterprise_'s photon torpedo, bluish white and just below full power. The bridge waited with bated breath for the ship to right itself and zoom back to engage in full battle. Instead, Uhura glanced up at Kirk, half her attention still dedicated to the piece tucked neatly into her ear.

"Captain, the Warbird has accepted our request for contact."

"Good—put them on the observation window."

With the flick of a switch, the giant, ridged face of the Klingon captain swung into view on the giant screen in front of them all. He grunted his words.

"Who trespasses in our territory?"

_Good,_ Kirk thought in relief. _He speaks English._

"I am Captain James T. Kirk of the Starship _Enterprise_ with the United Federation of Planets," he introduced immediately, formally. "We did not intend to encroach on any boundaries. But I don't recall the Klingon boarders extending so far out."

The captain's gruff features scrunched in what might've been anger. "The Federation? We made an agreement with your Federation to temporarily stretch our territory."

He glanced over at Spock, who was attempting to wince through his pain and focus on the task at hand, but still managed to look concerned. Dorthea was frowning slightly at the screen, thrown off by the fact that she couldn't read through the channel connecting the two ships.

"For what purposes? I wasn't informed of the change—"

"This is enough." The Klingon captain rose to his feet and scowled at them. "We will cease fire if you leave our boundaries immediately."

The channel died, leaving most of them stunned. Kirk remained staring at the screen thoughtfully.

"Captain?" Sulu inquired after a moment, turning to him for instruction.

Kirk hesitated to answer, his fists clenching and unclenching at his sides, but turned and fell back into his chair. "Head back to base," he ordered. "We'll avoid confrontation until I can talk to Starfleet."

"Captain, I believe we have—a mission—at Qo'noS as it is." Spock's sentence was interrupted by the surge of aching through his muscles, cutting off his voice only momentarily while he batted his eyes closed and called upon the strength instilled by meditation. "Should we not attempt a compromise of some sorts?" The proposition stole all his breath and he found himself clamoring for air once again.

At the sign of distress, Bones hopped once more into action and stormed up to Spock's side, gripping his shoulder unyieldingly and lifting him out of the chair.

"That's it. I'm taking him back to medbay, and I don't give a damn what either of you say," he grumbled, leading Spock reluctantly back to the turbolift.

Kirk's eyes followed the pair until the doors shut behind them, blocking both Spock and Bones from his view, and then rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms. "Take us out, Mr. Sulu."

"Aye, Captain."

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**A/N: **hi! =) uh. read and review, please! since i got two chapters up in one week! i'm proud of me, are you?


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